


Taken by Surprise

by Cornerofmadness



Category: Original Work
Genre: Demons, Gen, Paranormal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:59:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26072293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cornerofmadness/pseuds/Cornerofmadness
Summary: He was used to humans bargaining for their lives but no one had ever made him this offer before.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 5
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	Taken by Surprise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cozy_coffee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cozy_coffee/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:** This is my original work. If you are interested in it, let me know. Please do not steal it
> 
> **Notes:** written for cozy_coffee in comment_fic for this intriguing prompt: Any, any evil character,  
> Demons are just FALLEN ANGELS.  
> They fell  
> From HEAVEN to HELL,  
> And unlike angels,  
> DEMONS have a STORY to tell.

Late night in a place like Glendalough shouldn’t be prime hunting for someone like him. Raym had decided to stroll the medieval monastic village in the dark because it had been so long since he’d prowled around the site. He enjoyed visiting holy sites and doing his thing. It made him smile just a little bit. He’d taken his favorite form when he heard some people about and sat in the trees watching them. No one paid much heed to crows other than to give them a wide berth. They still enjoyed that semi-supernatural reputation after all. From his spot near the round tower, Raym watched the sun go down, the tourists leave, and then the moon rise.

To his surprise, a new person entered the village after dark, her footsteps soft on the shifting gravel and dirt path that wended its way through ruined churches and the wild press of old gravestones, many of them pitched to the side. A couple had fallen in a way to make a tunnel over part of the path. He roosted on them for a while watching her. Her hair must be of a darker color, her clothes as well, appearing nigh onto black in the gloom, even to his eyes. Once she was past him to the reconstructed ruins of the ‘priest’s house,’ Raym shifted forms, tossing his long hair over his shoulder.

She whipped around hearing his footsteps behind her and shone her flashlight in his face. He smiled, knowing the form he’d taken to be a pretty one. Hopefully, it would disarm her, not that it would matter in the long run. “You startled me.”

“Sorry. I didn’t expect anyone here,” Raym replied.

“Me either. A ghost hunter?” she asked.

He rolled his shoulders. Sure, why not? It was a good a story as any. Humans were into that again, weren’t they? “You got me. Well, I’m just looking the place over. I’m not hunting tonight.” He was a prince of lies. Okay, he wasn’t a prince. He was a Great Earl but that still commanded respect.

“Cool. I’ve never gone ghost hunting but it sounds like fun. Though in a place like this which is so old, would the spirits even understand modern English?”

Raym shook his head. “Not in the least.”

“I didn’t think so but you never see the ghost hunters on the shows asking questions in any other language usually. I watch them a lot. I’m into the paranormal.” She shrugged. “Has anyone ever told you that you look a little like Chris Hemsworth as Thor?”

Raym chuckled. He’d picked that face on purpose. It was an attractive one, after all. “Once or twice. What brings you out here so late?”

“I’m here for a story myself.” She smiled but the flashlight’s beam made it seem eerie, highly appropriate for the place if you asked him.

“I’m sure you’re going to get one.”

Raym moved faster than she could blink. One hand over her mouth, he put the other hard against her carotid, compressing it. It didn’t take long for her to wink out. Raym pitched her over one shoulder effortlessly and confiscated her flashlight. Where to take her? St. Kevin’s cave was too far. It was tempting to befoul the old hermit’s sequestered living space, if in truth that’s what the cave really was but Raym was feeling lazy. He didn’t want to trek that distance with her slung over his back like a sack of potatoes. St. Kevin’s kitchen, a small church whose locked gate wouldn’t stop him for more than a moment, tempted him as it was right here in the monastic village, but the cathedral, such as it had left standing, wouldn’t require any effort at all.

Granted the cathedral came more than a few centuries after good old Kevin, but parts of it had been standing since the eleven-hundreds. Now that had been prime hunting time! Everyone so afraid of the devil, so pious, so fun to break. Raym hadn’t even given much thought to the hunt here in Glendalough. He’d only shown up for nostalgia’s sake. He wanted to go to America and dip his toes into the evangelical right’s narrow-minded little pool. Those were the people with enough intolerance to slake his appetites as he rent them to flinders emotionally first, then bodily. He wanted to show them that they had so little of it right. The girl tonight would fare better. He wasn’t in fine form at the moment, just a little wetting of the beak so to speak, no true horrors to inflict, and then he’d move on.

He carted her into the twelve-century chancel inside the ruined cathedral and dropped her near a basin that might have once held holy water. Tonight, it could contain blood. Raym tapped her cheek but it took her a few moments to rouse. She let out a gasp and tried to back away but Raym held her by her hair.

“Please,” she begged, grabbing onto his hand enmeshed in her hair. “Don’t kill me.”

“I can see the future and yours doesn’t look that good.” Raym smiled.

“Please. Why are you doing this?”

“It’s my nature.”

“No one is born bad,” she said in soft tones, trying to calm him down. Of course, she thought he was human. “I’m a storyteller, a podcaster. You can tell me your story. Who hurt you? You have a message, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes. If you don’t kill me, I can get that message out there for you.”

Raym blinked. No one had ever wanted to hear his story before. Pleading for their life, he heard that thousands of times over thousands of years. No one ever asked to know about him. Even if they knew his name, they only wanted it to conjure and bind him to their bidding. Oh, how he hated those fools. Never once had he been asked for his story. “You would tell my story?”

She bobbed her head frantically. “Thousands of people listen to my podcasts. I do one about the weird and the wild of the world.”

Raym smiled. “If I let you live, you’ll tell my story?”

“Absolutely.”

Of course, she’d say that. Once he let her go, she’d probably tell the police about him, not that it mattered to Raym. “I am a Great Earl of Hell, Raym.”

She blinked. When this cathedral had been built, she would have believed him immediately but he could see the wheels turning in her head. She thought he was crazy. “You’re a demon? That’s not…”

“The truth!” he roared at her, making her jump and try to scurry away but he still held her hair. Raym let his magic fall away, showing her his true face for only a moment before restoring his stolen one. When she stopped screaming, he asked. “Are you still going to tell my story?”

Her hand trembled as she put it over her mouth as if to bottle up the noises she made, and she slowly nodded. “It is weird and wild.”

Raym grinned and let her go. He sat cross legged on the stones in front of her. She didn’t make a break for it. Seeing his real face, knowing that he was something other than human, she probably knew she had no chance of escape unless he willed it. All she did was take out her cell phone and pressed something. He figured she was recording him and that made him happy. 

“Let me start in the beginning.” Raym paused and prepared himself. He would tell this like the bards of old, using their cadence to enrapture his audience. For once someone would know his story, and it was a good one from robbing kings to making people fall in love and all sorts of other atrocities in between.

“Demons are just _fallen angels_.  
They fell  
From _heaven_ to _hell_ ,  
And unlike angels,  
_demons_ have a _story_ to tell…”

**Author's Note:**

> [ Glendalough ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glendalough)and all the parts of the monastic village described above are real and is in County Wicklow in Ireland. Raym is also ‘real’ being found listed in the _Ars Goetia _referenced in Johann Weyer's _Pseudomonarchia Daemonum_.__


End file.
